abuse

Growing up….I never imagined getting married. But divorce was even harder to see happening.

I am pit bull loyal…I have a love for all humans. But there are a few whom I would give my life, my freedom, every ounce of my being for. I took my marriage, my vows very seriously. The problem is…I was the only one who took them seriously, the only one fighting for us to be right, the only one with any love. I won’t lie…near the end, I could hardly look at myself in the mirror. My anger, resentment and fear were radiating from my eyes. My eyes were cold, dark, unloving. No spark, no life, no hope. The only thing that kept me going was looking at my face, my body and knowing that no matter how hurt I was I was still me on the inside, my mind was still there. Even during the worst of things….I knew that I would never get an apology, I knew that I would never have an explanation that would make things ok, but all I wanted was for hugs when I needed them.

It just shows me how pathetic and ignorant I am. The denial of kind human touch was harder than I thought it could be….because I still loved him. After getting the pulp beat out of me, broken teeth, swollen throat from being choked, my scalp separated from my skull from being smashed into things, getting burned with smokes, being unable to see out of either eye and my mouth swollen open….all I wanted was a hug from HIM. I just wanted the tiniest bit of kindness so I had fight in me, so I could try to forgive, so I could see him as human, but he denied it every time. I wasn’t worthy of a hug….not even after what he did…

For the longest time…I felt it was my duty to stick by him when nobody else would. That it was my duty to continue to be loving, forgiving and not stir trouble. That it was my duty to not bring up what he did, to not ask for an apolgy and to not talk about how I felt. I made a vow after all right…

The problem is I failed to recognize that there are TWO parts to that vow…we made the same vow to each other…and he went back on it many many times. He hurt me, did not love me or cherish me, yet expected me to hold up my side of the vow.

God doesn’t want us to be hurt or abused. For the longest time I felt guilty for filing for divorce and since it was granted I try not to think about it. As I sit her and watch Sons of Anarchy Season 6 I see that Tara is filing for divorce and Jax just found out. The look on his face was heartbreaking…and for not even a second I thought “I did that to my ex husband”. I was almost sad…I almost felt like I betrayed him, but as quickly as that thought came it was replaced with peace.

I did the right thing. I did not betray him by divorcing him…he betrayed me for years while in our marriage.

Also…until this day I kind of thought that since I am divorced the “value of marriage” is nill. That is not true…if anything I know if there is a next time it will be with the right person because marriage is for a lifetime. As much as I like to be tough and strong…I do want to be married again, I want someone to come home to, someone to love and support, someone to fall asleep next to and wake up next to, and I also want someone with whom we can have a mutual trust.

I can be very good at pretending. Pretending I am strong, pretending I can overcome my past and pretending I do not have issues. The only way my pretending works is if I do not allow myself to get close to anyone, as long as I focus more on others than on myself. This strategy has worked well most of my life. Sometimes things hurt too much to think or deal with them. Sometimes verbally speaking about my issues is too hard because if I say it then they will be real. Honestly, most of my life the one complement that is most repeated to me is that I am strong. I almost feel as if I am letting everyone down by having emotions, by being weak, by being vulnerable. Not only am I letting people down, I am letting myself down because I am giving my strength away by being human (as strange as that seems). The simple reality is that I have survived up until this point by pretending. I pretended I was ok and never put my problems on anyone when my father was sexually abusing me. When my husband was abusive, I did the same. I did not know there was another way to survive in this world. In fact, surviving is pretty much all I have done up until this point.

Thankfully, I am no longer in crisis mode. For the first time in my life, my life is mine. Finally, at 28, I have control of my life and can blame nobody for my actions, feelings, thoughts, or situation. At first, I was unsure how to handle this new power. It was so severe I was unable to make the choice to go for a walk with the kids because it felt wrong. I felt I needed permission and I could not make the decision to do anything on my own. That was a year ago. But today things are different.

I have grown more this past year than I have probably my whole life. I see more, I know more, I love more and I am finding myself. Two years ago if you told me I would be where I am today, I would have laughed at you…thought you were crazy. I “knew” better than to leave my husband, I “knew” better than to take him to court and I sure as hell “knew” that divorce and filing for custody were not options for me. I had no control, no safety, no trust. My entire life evolved around making an abusive, drug addict who hated everything (including me) happy. It was impossible. The more I sacrificed money, my self respect, my thoughts, my freedoms, the more I lost myself. My thoughts were no longer my own, they were entwined with his and in no way was this a good thing. I was barely a shell of a human…no longer a woman, no longer a mother, and certainly no longer a wife. I was scum, a parsite, stupid and every negative thing.

Abusers choose people who love, people who have compassion, people with empathy. They break you down and make you believe it is all your fault. Every action they do is to control you, to hurt you, to fuel their own ego and inadaquacies. It works well for the abuser because a normal loving human could not imagine doing what the abuser does. A normal human tries to figure out why someone would do those things. A normal human loves and trusts their spouse. So, when their spouse tells them that everything is their fault…they eventually believe it because nothing else makes sense.

I assumed that when I left I would be the person I can be, the person God made me to be and that the past would be the past. I was wrong. It is not that simple. After the initial shock of leaving, things do get better. 1000X better than living in an abusive relationship. But you are not healed, there are still lingering deep deep issues.

My main goal right now is to retrain the way I think. The subconscious is more powerful than I know, but it is not impossible to change. If I speak to a domestic violence survivor, I can tell them the truth. Everything they need to hear. My heart and brain know that every single word I speak is truth, “You are not to blame”, abusers “Choose to abuse”, and that how they are feeling is normal. The problem is that try as I might, I believe I am different (although I can not pinpoint why or how). The things that are true for others are not true for me. I have basically been brainwashed and knowing the truth does not make it true in my gut.

Now, all my life I have been in survival mode. Abused my more people than I care to remember. Never having a say over what happens to my body. Never having a voice. Never being loved or loving myself.

I am done being in survival mode. I am done scrapping by. I am done pretending. Silence fuels the problems. Ignoring issues allows them to fester. I have been hurt too much, by too many people and I am unwilling to hurt myself any longer.

Tonight…I found myself missing my old life. Missing falling asleep next to my husband, missed hearing his stories and his laugh and cuddling on the couch watching entire seasons of Heroes.
Put on some Pandora and “Home” by Three Doors Down popped up. Brought me back to reality.
Our house was not a home. I am better off alone. The arguing, threats, screaming, fighting, abuse and other issues were no good.
I created a facade of our relationship in both my own mind and in the minds of others by how I portrayed our life.

Never again will I lie to myself. I will not settle for less than I deserve in regards to how I am treated.

Although lonliness attacked me today, I will not give in. I will not give up or settle. I will not betray myself or my morals.

This past year has been probably the hardest year of my life…and there is still one month left to do. I began to write this…thinking that it is almost Christmas…but the new year and this past year spoke louder to me.

I began this year 7 months pregnant with my husband and my third baby. We were living at his moms house…with his mom, her boyfriend, and my husbands niece. My husband had me quit my job a few months earlier and he had not been working for avoid a year.

In fact my new “work” was begging. Literally…standing in front of stores with my 2 year old and 8 month old, with my 7 month pregnant belly begging random strangers for change or a few bucks, or diapers or gas or whatever my husband wanted at the time. Don’t get me wrong…when I just couldn’t do it…he did it a few dozen times…but not 8 plus hours a day….6 days a week. It was awful. First time I asked a stranger for some gas I was given 20 bucks…from then on he wanted me to ask people for money. He would sit in our car and watch me…to make sure I was really trying, getting enough and not being lazy. Great man eh…makes his wife and kids beg instead of letting his wife work or working himself. When I started being recognized or when I hated waking up because I knew it would be another day of him driving me from store to store to get him money. I didn’t ever set any back for myself. Never lied about what I was given. It all went to him. Normally….he refused to use what we were given for gas or diapers….instead it was first used on weed and as I found out later meth.

A few weeks into the year we moved into an apartment and lives there until April. That was the house of horrors for me. Made me cry when I got my daughters birth certificate…and it has our address printed right on it. Anyway…the first night we were there the shit started…little did I know…making it out of that apartment alive would truly be a miracle. Remember…I was 7 months pregnant when we moved it. My mother in laws boyfriend drove all our stuff to the apartment. There is an ongoing “issue” my husband had for about 6 months prior where he kept accusing me of fucking his moms boyfriend, of sneaking out of our room and cheating on him with his mind boyfriend etc. he wasn’t nice about it either…kicked me in the face over it, went into detail telling me how “loose” I was, beating me up became I was in the living room and his moms boyfriend was in the kitchen and I was being suspicious. I helped carry some little stuff…then went into the boys room with them and told mg husband I didn’t want to go back downstairs with his moms boyfriend because I didn’t want problems. I just got called a bunch of names, told I was being stupid because there was no trust issue and that I was a lazy far white who “probably was fucking his moms boyfriend”. Little did I know that he brought 17gr meth into the apartment, had moved to the area to be close to his friend who is a cool (of meth) for the hells angels and that he went to all the neighbors introduced himself and told them he lives with our tel babies and me. He told our neighbors I was nuts, hormonal, pregnant with our 3rd baby in 2 years and that I had issues where I liked to scream and yell and break things. Then he walked upstairs….called me every name in the book and beat me up…black eye, hurt belly, bruises on my neck….suffocation, threats of worse violence and death if the cops showed up. It was the beginning of my hell.

I am up to about Jan 11th…and my head hurts thinking about what happened in that place. Im done for now…I can’t keep writing. There are many things that have never seen daylight, never been written or spoken…and I can not so that now.

Anyway…it was a tough year…even now it certainly isn’t easy. But I am safe! That is huge for me.

I do not like looking over my shoulder, being afraid of being found, being unable to connect with those I love out of fear that I will be found and killed.

I am lucky. I know this now. Many women who have been through things similar to me simply never made it out alive. So dispute my pain, my fear, my issues…I am thankful that God allowed me to do what needed to be done to survive, that was was given an out and that I was able to take the chance when it was given to me.

I had options to leave, in fact….I literally ran out the door to the convenience store I believe over 60 times in a 6 month period earlier this year. Each time he chased me….begging me to come back, promising to change. I fell for it again and again…even though I knew better.

The time that haunts me was when we had been locked in the apartment for just over a week. He was smoking dope non-stop, not sleeping, had the windows covered with blankets nailed 1 inch apart and the door barricaded with furniture. He believed I was poisoning his drinks, stealing and poisoning his dope and that I had people sneaking in to “fuck me”. The apartment had night vision cameras set up along with audio recorders and he also used his phone to keep tabs on everything. Anyway…he told me repeatedly…I would not make it out of the apartment alive, that he would kill me, my sister, my brothers, my mom, everyone I loved if I left. During that week…he raped me, bashed my head into the wall because I didn’t want to have sex with him, ripped open my c section stitches, verbally abused me, refused to let me outside or even use a phone, gave me two black eyes, a broken tooth, a huge far lip, bruised ribs, more bumps than I know on my head, bruises on my neck from being choked. At this time…my youngest was not even 2 months old. I still had my c section staples in because I couldn’t leave to go to the doctor. (eventually…he removed them himself with wire cutters). My boys were 14 months and 28 months old. Anyway….he left me in the living room and walked to the back bedroom. After a minute…I took my chances…and ran. Leaving the kids behind. I will never forgive myself for that choice.

I ran wearing only a t shirt and panties..no pants, shoes, bra. I got to the store and say on the curb…and waited. I knew it wouldn’t take long for him to show up. Within 5 minutes…he was there….without the kids. He told me I needed to go home, that he didn’t understand why I left, that he loved me, and he promised never to hurt me again. I told him I didn’t believe him…that I was going to call the cops and say that our kids were alone at home and I was afraid to go get them. He convinced me that I would have the child neglect charges and that cps would take the kids from me. So…I went home with him…about half hour after I left. I cried the whole way home and he repeated over and over that I was ok and safe. When we pulled in the driveway….I was in hysterics. He said “baby girl, I know I have hurt you and you don’t trust me. I will sit in the car until you trust me and ask me to come in”. Sounded too good to be true…but I took it. I believed him.

As I walked up the stairs I could hear my 2 month old screaming. I unlocked the door….saw that he was still in the car and looked inside and the apartment wax pitch black. The baby was on the floor and her older brothers were on top of he. I ran and picked the baby up and as I did the apartment began to shake. He was coming! Running up the stairs with a furry…taking 2 steps at a time. I don’t remember his saying a word as he ran across the living room and pounced on me. I threw the baby and begged him to make sure she was ok first. But he didn’t listen. Her screams will haunt me. My utter hopelessness…thinking I would die unable to save my hurt baby. Breaks my heart….something I pray I will never face again.

The beating went on for well over a hour. I am surprised I survived. But I did. All 3 babies were in the room the whole time…although it was pretty dark…they heard it all.

Come to find out….he cut the power before he left, left the kids there as a trap and planned the whole thing. Sickening really.

I don’t know why people do what they do. All I know is what he is capable of…and I don’t like it and I will never be able to be safe if he knows where we are….